Walk up the Loxley valley from Malin Bridge and after a few minutes along the riverside, you’ll soon reach a huge iron capstan standing next to a beautiful mill pond.
The capstan marks your arrival at the first of the historic man-made dams that fed water power sites all the way up the valley.
In this case, the dam powered the old Wisewood Forge that stood immediately below it, where the Loxley Park retirement village has now been built.
If you look carefully over the wall next to the retirement village buildings, you can still see remnants of the partly filled water wheel pit.
You can also see a roller, rachet and pawl from the shuttle that was used to empty the 1½ acre dam. These are in the stonework on the edge of the water, close to where the capstan stands.
Then, just a short distance to your left as you look up the valley, you’ll cross an overflow where water cascades in a steep fall to the adjacent river.
The dam is filled by water channelled from the large four-bayed stone weir that stands across the river a little further upstream at its western end.
The path up the valley to the weir passes along the dam, which is bounded by a vast ashlar stone dam wall creating a high vertical drop to the River Loxley flowing below.
The weir itself now features a “fish pass” mounted on its sloping stone face to help fish to move upstream.
There’s also a small modern hydro electricity plant marking a new phase of water power generation in the valley. It can feed enough electricity into the grid to power four homes.
At the time of writing in 2026, the dam is being managed by a group of local anglers. They’ve dredged some of the debris that had accumulated in the water, and are cutting back some of the overgrown trees and scrub on the bank.
What’s the history of the site?
The “Water Power on the Sheffield Rivers” book tells us that there was a tilt, a forge and a rolling mill on the site in the mid 19th century, with hammers and anvils creating a noisy environment.
Below the present day Loxley Park buildings there was a second dam that powered more buildings for cutlery grinding and then a later rolling mill. Both sites were devastated by the 1864 Sheffield Flood and then largely rebuilt.
The lower dam was filled in long ago, and is now an area of scrubland behind the tall fence at the side of the public footpath up the valley.
But a big area of stonework and deep shuttle pits survives at its lower end and can be seen through the fence. One of the photographs below shows this in 1989, before the scrub took hold and the fence was erected.
Archaeologists excavated the site in 2003 before Loxley Park was built. They found numerous old grinding troughs (or “trows”), a forge hearth, an anvil base and a tilt hammer base. A photograph and plan of their findings can be seen in the Water Power book referred to above.
What’s the heritage status of the site?
Wisewood Forge and the other Loxley valley water power sites are now recognised for their heritage significance on the South Yorkshire Local Heritage List, following a successful submission by Friends of the Loxley Valley and other local groups in 2023.
Thank you!
We are indebted to many people and sources for their help in putting these water power pages together.
We would like to thank Tony Ball of the South Yorkshire Industrial History Society for his kind permission to reproduce images from their excellent book “Water Power on the Sheffield Rivers”. Much of the research for these pages is based on the authoritative water wheel histories in that book.
We would also like to thank Bradfield Parish Council and the Sheffield City Council North Local Area Committee for their generous funding of the interpretation signs and finger posts that we have put up along the valley.
